Similar to this answer, which in my testing has extraneous steps, I found the closest I could get was to, within OneNote, Select/Cut/position(cursor or click)/Paste the image where you want within text where you want. On Windows OneNote 2016, Desktop version at least, this:
- DOES indeed result in the image being "anchored" at that insertion point, but
- wraps the surrounding text using the "Top and Bottom" effect available in other Office apps, left-justifying the image on a new line with text before the image insertion point above and text on a new line after the inserted image below.
This does solve the original question since:
- It does anchor the image object at the pasted insertion point and
stays with the text thereafter, and
- The OP didn't specify if the object should also remain and wrap inline behaving as if it were a character.
Minimum Steps
Important: Do not shortcut this by attempting to copy your clipboard content from another program and directly pasting that at your insert point. In my testing, the image object must first exist in OneNote (you can paste it there from another program first) and then be copied to the clipboard from OneNote as below. My attempts to copy from another program, such as Paint, and directly paste that into OneNote at my insertion point DID NOT result in the desired anchoring.
All steps using your favorite technique (click/menu or cursor/keyboard):
- If the target image is not already within OneNote, create/insert/paste the target anywhere within OneNote where it's convenient. It will be effectively "moved" from there when completed.
- Select only the target image object, nothing else.
- Cut the selected object (or Copy, then Delete).
- Move/reposition the cursor to your desired insertion point.
- Paste.
At this point, the image should be anchored to the text at the insertion point with the image starting on a new line followed by (on a subsequent new line) any characters after the insertion point.
My Original Problem
I was originally trying to solve 2 anchoring issues that are closely related to the original question:
- [Resolved] Pasting an image into a numbered list (a step-by-step procedure I was writing) was assigning the image (in my case copied from an external program, Paint) its own new number in the list when I was trying to attach a supporting image to a specific numbered item in the list. There was no obvious way to delete the newly assigned number (e.g. Backspace deleted the image instead) short of ending that list and starting over. For some reason, using my steps and copying the image again except this time from within OneNote and inserting it at the end of a specific number item worked and kept the image together with the intended line. Although, any text afterwards was assigned a new list item number, easily rectified by a simple Backspace.
- [Unresolved] Inserting, as an inline character, an image of a icon/symbol that is not available in any standard character set. [Work-around] Instead, I created a graphic that incorporated the example including my graphic symbol so that (now correctly anchored) image exemplified the complete solution.
This solution was close enough for my purposes and solves at least one of the anchoring problems I was having: keeping an image anchored to a list item.
Platform
All of the above was tested on Windows OneNote 2016 for desktop 32-bit (installed as part of Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2016) on Windows 10 20H2 64-bit.
I do not know how this applies to other OneNote editions, including (but not limited to):
- OneNote UWP (Microsoft Store)
- OneNote Web
- OneNote Android App
- OneNote iOS App
- Other OneNote/Office Editions/Platforms/Versions